Pinterest made me do it!

I completely blame Pinterest for my recent over indulgence at my daughter's 1st birthday party.  We wanted to do a BBQ with friends and family this summer so we tied in Melody's birthday with it which gave me reason to decorate and possibly go a little crazy.  It started with owls.  I had some Owl napkins and balloons from when Mia turned 1 that I never got to use because she was sick at her birthday.  Thankfully I had another little girl that this decor would work for.  Some late night Pinterest scrolling found me obsessed with everything else I could do with the Owl theme.  Banners, cup cake sticks, bottled water labels, personlized t-shirt....and on and on...and I wanted it all!

Pinterest led me to Etsy where I bought all the graphics which were emailed to me as soon as I hit pay.  My colour printer isn't working so I sent everything to Staples to be printed.  The birthday banner was all separate triangles that had to be cut and I am not a straight cutter so I had the girl at Staples do it for me. Then I had to glue the banner pieces to ribbon to make it come together.  Then I had to glue all the cup cake sticks and iron on the t-shirt transfer to Melody's shirt for the big day.  I don't even want to admit how much I had spent at this point from buying to printing to cutting....all for what?  So the other mommies would be impressed with my matchy matchy theme because we know Melody didn't care.  My husband looked at me like I had 2 heads but I thought he's a guy he doesn't get it everyone's going to love it!  He let me roll with it almost knowing I would learn a lesson in the end.

Then the baking began, way to many cupcakes, rice krispie treats, apple crumble....I was exhausted.  I was smart enough to just buy all my salads pre-made....I know my limits.

In the end I was glad we had the party, I was happy to have our friends and family over for an afternoon.  What I wasn't happy with was how I let myself get carried away.  My cupcake platters look beautiful, then I put the cupcake sticks in and they looked cluttered, but I paid for the silly things so I was using them!  My banners and balloons - not one person commented on my cute little theme!!

So what did I learn?  I let the material things take the lead.  None of it mattered, all that mattered was the people we were with and celebrating our little girl.  A nice banner and a few balloons from the dollar store would have sufficed just to make it look like a birthday party.

Pinterest has become this la la land of perfection in entertaining and decorating that I just can't get myself involved it.  I find myself scrolling through at 1am when I can't sleep and then I obsess over something.  Now I have found some great kid craft ideas but that's all it's good for for me.  I had to take the app off my phone to free myself from Pin obsession.

And to my husband, admitting it all is the hardest part, but he was right....he better print this because he won't see it too often!